'Called to have the courage': Augustinian address blends faith in God and realities of practice

Dr. Mary Soha blended the philosophy of Baptism and the salvation of God with the realities of bringing the Catholic Faith to Native Americans in 1565 La Florida as she delivered this year’s Augustinian Day Address Monday.

Most Rev. Erik T. Pohlmeier, bishop of the diocese, lead vespers Monday prior to Soha’s talk.

The Augustinian Day Address, first held in 2000, honors the feast day of St. Augustine who is patron saint of the Cathedral Parish, the City of St. Augustine, and the Catholic diocese in Northeast Florida.

“Our mission first and foremost is to seek the Kingdom of God,” Soha told the audience in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine. “We are called to have the courage, the love, the understanding and the apostolic zeal to meet people where they are, to understand their language and their culture, and to help them see the divine spark in their own soul.”

Soha, a pediatrician by profession, moved to St. Augustine in 2011 from Jacksonville.

“I especially want to show the belief of both Agustin (Augustine) and the Catholic Faith that Baptism is necessary for the salvation of a soul and that they were compelled to answer Christ’s command in Matthew’s gospel to 'Go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,’” she said.

The receptivity of the natives (in La Florida) to this teaching was amazing although not without its trials, setbacks, hard ships and sacrifices of the Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans, parochial priests, Spaniards and the Native Peoples themselves, the people of La Florida who requested and lived out their baptismal promises themselves.”

Agustin was critical of his mother St. Monica’s Christian faith and angered that his friend Harmodius’ parents had him baptized when he was near death. However, he realized he had no relationship with God. Soha said, he began to read St. Paul’s teachings sought direction from Ambrose, later a saint, and “resolved his issues with the 'presence of evil' through the counseling of an old monk Simplicianus. Ambrose in Milan later baptized him."

In one of her commercials, Soha connected Agustin’s baptism in 347 to the founding of St. Augustine, the city, by Spain’s Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565. The connection was at both events, the hymn Te Deum Laudamus, or Holy God We Praise Thy Name, was sung. The Latin hymn, she said, was translated into English and set to music by Father Clarence Wadsworth whom she discovered was a stepbrother of Gen. Martin D. Hardin, a Civil War general, to whom the Historic Chapel of Our Lady of La Leche was dedicated.

Soha noted, too, that one of the most recognized of sacred historians of the church is connected to St. Augustine, the city, and the Martyrs of La Florida, of which Soha is one of five vice postulators (official supporters) of the cause for canonization.

Sacred historians look at the history of man as the story of salvation and are not afraid to show the direct intervention of in human history.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Augustinian address blends faith in God and realities of practice